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About Michael J. Miller

Miller, who was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine from 1991 to 2005, authors this blog for PC Magazine to share his thoughts on PC-related products. No investment advice is offered in this blog. All duties are disclaimed. Miller works separately for a private investment firm which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed in this blog, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be made.

Is P&G The Next Digital Giant?

Fortune's annual Brainstorm Tech conference opened today with executives
from Proctor & Gamble talking about how they want to use digital
technology as P&G's competitive edge. It was an unusual choice, but
seemed meant to explain how technology is changing all kinds of
businesses.

P&G CEO Bob McDonald said the company hopes to
digitize the work of the entire company, from working with chemical
molecules to marketing and sales.

Filippo Passerini, president of Global Business Services and CIO of P&G, said the goal was "to run the business real time," with
things like predictive models of the business to accelerate decision
making. He said P&G had 88 fundamental distinct business processes,
and the company has looked at each of them to figure out how it could
make these "digital."
McDonald talked about how each department manager used to forecast with their own Excel spreadsheets; instead, there will now be a centralized demand planning application that brings in real-time data from every outlet. And he discussed an application called "consumer pulse" that aggregates customer service calls, tweets, blogs, etc. for each brand manager.

Jennifer Reingold, Fortune's senior editor, asked if this could create a cacophony of voices, and McDonald replied that it would require training. He touched on the need to get information from its suppliers in real-time. For instance, they would talk to chemical suppliers, so they too could better manage the demand. He said this has let them collapse the number of layers in the organization and eliminate positions, such as halving the number of vice-chairmen and cutting 15 percent of the vice presidents.

McDonald explained how technology has now been decentralized within the business units and how technology training was now part of every employee's responsibility and evaluation. Passerini said technology has helped P&G save $900 million over the past 8 years.

McDonald said P&G reached 4.2 billion people and wanted a one-to-one relationship with these customers. For instance, he talked about the Old Spice campaign and how the company encouraged consumers to parody and participate in these ads, gaining 1.8 billion unpaid ad impressions.

When asked about his personal technology, McDonald responded by saying he can't use the cloud because he needs always-on technology, and he can't use a BlackBerry because he can't type fast enough on it. Instead, he uses a small computer with cell phone connections that he can use wherever he is. Answering another audience question, he said consumers use a lot of coupons, including digital coupons, and as the world's largest advertiser, P&G was working with Facebook, Google, and others to develop technology that helps P&G to commercialize that technology.

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